Series:
Conard County (Book 1)
SOMEONE WAS STALKING HIM
After being held captive for four years, CIA agent Ransom
Laird just wanted to enjoy the wide-open spaces and warm sunshine of Wyoming.
He hadn't expected to meet a woman whose very soul touched him, warmed him-a
woman he could grow old with. And now that he'd found her, he was about to lose
her to an unknown assassin. Someone who wanted Ransom dead. Someone who was
trying to kill Mandy to get to him ...
Writer Mandy Grant saw Ransom as a wounded warrior
seeking shelter within her fortress walls and herself as the lonely princess,
too frightened to love. Because for Mandy, loving meant losing. And unless they
stopped the killer first, they were both going to lose....
I've been a long-time fan of the Conard County series but
only started reading them once I was further into the series. I liked getting
my hands on the book that began it all. The story quickly drew me in with
gripping suspense and emotional turmoil.
Ransom escaped from four years in a forced labor camp,
then spent several months in the hospital recovering from his injuries. Looking
for somewhere to finish his recuperation sent him to his friend, Nate, who
lives in rural Wyoming. In addition to the wide-open spaces Ransom craves, Nate
recommends him for a ranch hand position. He never expected to find a woman
whose soul spoke to his.
Mandy became something of a recluse after the death of
her husband four years earlier and the latest of many losses. She's afraid of
caring for someone only to lose again. She immerses herself in the books she
writes about warriors and princesses. Ransom's arrival creates cracks in the
walls she's built around her heart.
I enjoyed watching the relationship develop between
Ransom and Mandy. Ransom touched me from the start. He is scarred, inside and
out, by his experiences, but he wants this chance at a new life. After many
years of subduing his emotions, allowing himself to feel again is difficult. He
has a hard time believing anyone could care for him. Mandy is drawn to the
wounded warrior in ways she's never felt before. As they spent more time
together and grew closer, each had to face their fears before looking to a
future together.
Mandy and Ransom spend a lot of time inside their own
heads. When danger threatens, Ransom's protectiveness insists that she would be
better off without him. Mandy pulls back every time her relationship with Ransom
moves a little forward, terrified of risking her heart. There were times when I
wanted to shake her for how she treated him. There's an emotional scene where
he calls her out on it but disregards his own actions. It takes some in-depth
self-examination, brought on by extreme danger, to open their eyes to the
truth.
The suspense of the story was excellent. It began in the
prologue with someone watching Ransom in his hospital bed, thinking about how
easy it would be to kill him then. But they want to make him suffer first. When
unexplained incidents happen to Ransom and Mandy, he is initially reluctant to
believe someone is after him. After all, he's been inactive as an agent for
years, and very few people even know he's alive. But his instincts tell him he's
the target and he needs to protect Mandy. Though I figured out who the killer
was pretty early, I was fully invested in seeing how it turned out. The final
confrontation kept me glued to the pages as Ransom used his abilities to get to
Mandy before it was too late.
This book was published in 1992, so some things are a
little dated. One more noticeable was the realization that when Ransom, Nate,
and Micah spoke of the war they fought, they were referring to Vietnam. There
are no cell phones for quick communication, and the computer Mandy uses for
writing her books uses disks. But those were all minor considerations in my enjoyment
of the story.
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